LXXI

Lives he, who fixes on us that stern look
Of triumph, as if life's great aim were won?
The iron Junius, he who could not brook
That tyranny should blight the growth begun
Of palmy Rome? What deeds may not be done
By him who conquered nature's self, nor quailed?
Behold the priest who sacrificed his son
To duty; filial prayers in vain assailed;
Freedom, the love of country and of fame, prevailed.

LXXII

Unlike thee, noblest Roman, Pompey! thou,
Heir of that title unprofaned, " the great,"
The cloud is gathered o'er thy furrowed brow,
Prophetic still of overshadowing fate.
Presaging mind the evil doth create
It dreads, and on the self-raised vision dwells
Till the sure hours its birth ingenerate,
While mistrust, like the voice of oracles,
Prostrates the will unnerved with its foreboding spells.

LXXIII

Statue august! upon thy front subdued
Sits indecision, on thy lips the air
Of languor, as if, thy faint will withstood,
Thy spirit would succumb to its despair,
Bear witness, red Pharsalia! hadst thou there
Fought as of old, the unconquered chief had fled;
Then had great Rome, confided to thy care,
Rejoicing crowned that venerated head
With laurel-wreaths by fame, ray-like, around it spread.

LXXIV

But thy misgiving mind itself betrayed;
Flight followed, and the assassin's felon stroke;
On the wild shore thy headless corse was laid,
But from thy ashes Nemesis awoke,
And with avenging arm on Caesar broke
While at thy Statue's base he fell; from high
He saw thee watching; vainly did he cloak
His face, thy form grew on his dying eye,
He felt that thou wert there to look upon him die.

LXXV

We stand upon the Palatine, arrayed
With undecaying memories, the stage
Where Rome's great drama through its scenes was played;
Heroes the actors, the applauding age
The audience, stamping on the historic page
Deeds cursed or lauded as opinion swayed,
Such base hath vice or virtue; here the sage,
Retreat for thought, his sanctuary made;
The hero stilled awhile ambition in its shade.

LXXVI

Men are we, feeling our humanities;
Despite the eternal moral, the mind dwells
On these grey ruins with complacent eyes;
A sense of dignity within us swells;
Their tale the march of man majestic tells,
Oppressing yet the heart; doth not the spot
All tongueless, speak forth more than oracles,
The rise and fall of states, of empire's lot,
Their records ever thus, crushed, buried, and forgot?

LXXVII

The drama played hath melted to a dream,
The actors substant, for their shadows, cast
Upon our memories their lives redeem;
The stage is desolation, but the past,
A presence here, its ruin shall outlast,
And fill the inspiring air; yon skeleton
Of wreck in fragments rent, attests its vast
And glorious dimensions when it won
The wonder of the earth, that palace of the sun.

LXXVIII

Fame left the hill with Caesar, folly came
And reared her golden fabric, the fond toy
Of Nero, boast of servile Rome and shame,
Where wild caprice for ever found employ,
For tyrants' moods in satiating cloy;
But Fortune wearied turned at last away;
Then rushed the Goth and Vandal to destroy;
Fire, sword, and earthquake bore relentless sway,
While ruin toiled to heap that mountain of decay.

LXXIX

How delicately Nature's hand renews
The arch and column that she gently weds,
Softening the sadder memory which subdues!
How brightly o'er yon frieze its golden threads
The acacia throws! even as pure childhood spreads
Its playful locks round age's forehead grey.
O'er skeletons of ruin beauty sheds
Her blossoming, decay above decay;
But flowers are nature's eyes, no laurels of a day.

LXXX

S PIRIT ! that hoverest o'er this desolation,
That shedd'st on all thy sanctifying breath,
Life of the Past! whose vision is creation;
Who in the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Spak'st, and the dry bones leaped to life beneath;
Who, on time's isthmus standing, join'st the sea
Of two eternities; who twin'st the wreath
Acanthian round the dead renewed by thee;
Treasurer of deathless souls, divinest Memory!